Zones are the building blocks of urban analysis. Fields ranging from demo-graphics to transport planning routinely use zones — spatially contiguous areal units thatbreak-up continuous space into discrete chunks — as the foundation for diverse analysistechniques. Key methods such as origin-destination analysis and choropleth mapping relyon zones with appropriate sizes, shapes and coverage. However, existing zoning systemsare sub-optimal in many urban analysis contexts, for three main reasons: 1) administra-tive zoning systems are often based on somewhat arbitrary factors; 2) zoning systems thatare evidence-based (e.g., based on equal population size) are often highly variable in sizeand shape, reducing their utility for inter-city comparison; and 3) official zoning systemsin many places simply do not exist or are unavailable. We set out to develop a flexible,open and scalable solution to these problems. The result is the zonebuilder project (withR, Rust and Python implementations), which was used to create the ClockBoard zoningsystem. ClockBoard consists of 12 segments emanating from a central place and dividedby concentric rings with radii that increase in line with the triangular number sequence(1, 3, 6 km etc). ‘ClockBoards’ thus create a consistent visual frame of reference for mono-centric cities that is reminiscent of clocks and a dartboard. This paper outlines the designand potential uses of the ClockBoard zoning system in the historical context, and discussesfuture avenues for research into the design and assessment of zoning systems
